Therein Lies A Tangle
by thesquiglet
Summary: I thought the line 'new dream' from Tangle applied very well to Spies. Whoops.


Curt had wanted for the first time in his life to keep running and never stop. So why didn't he? Well he wanted to make sure his partner was actually….the way he'd been for those 30 seconds he'd watched him fall for. It had happened so quick. So quick.

Owen had been his best friend and he couldn't say goodbye to him. Not right now. They had so much further to go in life, so much to discover…as a team..with each other. Goodbyes weren't meant to be forever either….right? Right?

Yet as Curt covered his face with his hands and taking in the seemingly lifeless body, he knew he had to move. Down the steps or up them, he had to move before he also got in the way of the mission.

Screw the mission he had thought just as the same time his feet carried him up the steep stairs and out of the now haunted building.

He'd never enter back in there so long as he lived. Not with Owen's ghost in there.

He didn't even have time to hear Owen's raspy gasp of air, reaching for his partner that was never there. Curt never heard Owen speak those few words which could have kept something alive.

"You..were..my nn-ew dream"

So it had come to this – an old fashioned stand off - and again Curt's feet had a mind of it's own as he wanted to run and instead staying steadily on that step he'd stood on all those years ago, both minds working overtime between them. Curt had said he'd never return. He'd promised himself to never return. Yet here was something raw and unsuspecting that was making the spy fume ,sputter acting in disbelief all while wishing to be someone else that evening. The deadliest man was next to him.

Had been next to him for the past few years. Had been in the same room with him while he tort-no. There was no going there right now. The American couldn't handle that right now. Curt focused in on the stranger in front of him.

"You know I once said you were my new dream, do you remember that, well of course you don't because that would have meant you'd have actually listened to me for once, and of course you weren't going to be having that, were we? No no. Not when we know dear old Owen is dead and unable to show off for the sake of it! In fact I don't know which part I was more offended by, you taking off on your jollies without sparing so much as a second thought for me and my poor unconscious self or the fact I seem to have gotten on so much better than you in these past 4 years with no room for you left.

Giving myself a new identity, forging an incredible slew of weapons to arm myself with - including but not limited to actual people- although I've got to say, I wasn't lying y'know Curt. I really did think we'd make it, do the whole shebang but here we are, a selfish arrogant moron with a penchant for picking the wrong places to be and the wrong person to be with. No sorry I don't buy it. I always thought you'd have more fight in you. But then of course you were always the naive one so do forgive my utter appalled shock and derision of your 'worldly' ways. How wrong could I have been? You've changed Curt"

"Yeah well all this' better than you' business got boring after a while. Owen I never stopped caring. You gotta admit it. Owen, you took things too far. It's time to stop. Just stop. We can still work together, like we wanted. A chance to live with yourself. A chance to do good. The good we used to share"

"Be like you? Goody old Mega back to it's usual showings I see. What if I told you there's nothing worth saving because Curt old pal, I wouldn't trade being the deadliest man for all the glory in the world and you can tell Cynthia that too, she never came looking for me either. Like a little family we'd become and you clearly the favourite so I of course became the unknowing outcast and now look. Dy'know for someone so loyal to her employees, she never been bothered to turn up to a funeral or at least make arrangements for one. I clearly need more than you and your American disgracefulness. When will you shut up anyways and let everyone do your dirty work for you. Get on with it already? It's time to stop hogging the spotlight and let someone else have centre stage for a while"

"You were wrong about the world Owen, you always have been. There's more good than you know around and you were wrong about me. You let me believe in everything but myself. Constantly. I refuse to be a puppet on your strings for any longer than possible"

"What are you waiting for then?"

Owen's ghost became real that day. The man inside had been frozen for years but his body finally went stiff, the man Curt had known before the Russian facilities came into view and Curt could only find a little part of himself to feel bad about the gun firing.

He'd do his duty of burying him, remembering the best parts of the pompous Brit, however here was where he'd leave him. He needed to leave him here or he'd never move on or at least make the attempt to.

Time for something original. Something new. Today could be left in the past.


End file.
